Saturday afternoon was a bittersweet occasion for Tomas Soucek as his 50th goal for West Ham United coincided with a calamitous defeat at home by Southampton.

As Nuno Espirito Santo unloaded the entirety of his artillery – every available Hammers attacker was on the pitch by the end – substitute Soucek provided a thumping consolation deep into stoppage-time.

Of course, a home defeat to a potential promotion rival means what should have been a joyous occasion tastes extremely bittersweet for Tomas Soucek, even if he feels this was not a performance devoid of positives.

Tomas Soucek glad West Ham United created chances – but frustrated they didn’t take them

Southampton roared into a 2-0 lead inside eleven minutes at the London Stadium. They then grabbed a third shortly after Kyle Walker-Peters had halved the deficit.

There were to be no more goals until Soucek scored in the 93rd minute. But between Lewis Dobbin’s effort in the 34th and Soucek’s, West Ham created chance after chance and forced Peretz into save after save.

“In the second-half, we were much better and we played much better football,” Soucek told the club’s official website. “We have to play like that from the first minute because that’s the most important thing.

“But also there were positives because we created so many chances and we could score lots and lots of goals.”

Peretz summed up the afternoon when he brilliantly denied Edvin Austbo an equaliser. The ball rebounded back off Konstantinos Mavropanos but bounced agonisingly wide.

“Even in the last second, we could score to equalise the game,” Soucek sighs. “That would have been something nice at the end, but we didn’t do it and we all know the result.”

Soucek scores 50 Hammers goals but the occasion is spoiled

The result – their first home defeat since August and only their second of the league campaign – means West Ham failed to take advantage of Swansea City’s 5-0 collapse at Queens Park Rangers. Middlesbrough are the new leaders, having scored five themselves against Bolton Wanderers on Friday.

“Obviously, we are disappointed because we wanted three points,” Soucek reflects. “We were thinking and ready for it through the whole week. Now we are disappointed because we believe that we need to win every game at home, and today we couldn’t do that.

“It’s tough when you are losing after the first 15 minutes. It’s always tough. We need to get ready for the first few minutes because it happened a few times to us and it’s always difficult in the league to beat a team when you are losing.

“We know that when we score first we are ready to win the game, and that’s our goal for the next games.

“I would like to celebrate in a better way [my 50th goal], but obviously I am happy that I reached that many goals. I’m proud of that, but now it’s time to think about the team and the position in the league and that’s the most important thing.

“We need to work on the clean sheets because we believe in our strength. We always score the goals, that’s what I believe. As I said, it’s tougher when we concede two in the game. We lost today, we have to look at it and get better for the next games because today it wasn’t good, we have to be honest. But also we know how strong we are and we need to bounce back straight away.”